strange new normal

17 - 03/20 /19:11

Welcome to our strange new normal. Chaos has a way of reordering reality; that’s the claim of Nomadic Learning—builder of digital academies around the world. They claim that reordering how we operate opens doors to new opportunities and mind-sets.

This spring Americans are being pried out of a cultural habit more than a century old. In our new normal, the office is no longer the primary location where white-collar work gets done. Perhaps a million newly remote employees will discover that productivity, innovation and creativity are stronger when the office is abandoned.

Nomadic Learning imagines that if the coronavirus goes on hiatus this spring—infections drop and social distancing eases—many one-time office workers will have little interest in returning to how they use to work. The age of the office is over, and the bell can’t be un-rung.

And there’s really no need to try. The traditional office was already fading into obsolescence. The coronavirus pandemic just radically sped up the timeline. Give people the leeway and trust to schedule their work lives around their personal lives (not the other way around) and most workers will be more productive, more driven and happier. Organizations will learn that they benefit tremendously from losing the limitations that come with an office.

In 1970, Lawrence Richards wrote A New Face for the Church. He complained that we do not want anything to happen Sunday mornings that upsets our routine. We like to be inspired at church, to come away with warm feelings. But we definitely do not want to be disturbed. So we structure Sundays for predictability and comfort.

Well, we’re totally out of predictability. And while home is comfortable, self-quarantining will get really old, really quick. Ask the Italians.

Half a century ago Mr Richards anticipated churches might no longer own buildings (it would be illegal). He dreamed that in some future day Christ-followers would discover that what they really need is the body of Christ—need each other. We can be comforted by structure, entertained by a sage-on-a-stage, inspired by a rocking worship band, awed by cutting-edge technology.

But Christians need one another, for where two or three gather in Jesus’ name, He is there.

And what our world needs today is a church that is present in the community, that cares and acts and expects God to act. Let’s pray and let's act. Visit your neighbor, telephone someone from your past, help a stranger, boldly care for the sick, perhaps even sit with the dying and the grieving.